A year ago at the Western Washington Aviation Conference I met a delightful couple with two amazing children. The kids each went home with one of the children’s books and then this fall, I attended their school and read the Happy Plane to the students. Amazing connections came from that conference. When I heard they wanted to sell their family plane, I offered to share that here because she is a beauty and needs a good home. Due to their busy life and two growing children, they just don’t find themselves flying her much as they did. She is a clean, beautiful airplane, with a fascinating history.
N349RF began life on Mactan Island off the coast of Cebu in the Philippines where she was manufactured as a fast build kit—serial number ES-102-FB. Built by a Boeing engineer, and his building partner, he wanted additional range. Therefore, he called upon coworkers at The Boeing Company to model out and flutter test wing tanks that extended past the ribs of the Lancair’s existing wing design. The testing showed stable flight characteristics, so he built this ES with “50 gallon” tanks. He shared his engineering data with Lancair and they later incorporated his design into future kits.
he construction of N349RF and the required hours for phase one were complete, along with DAR sign off, in 2003. At some point the primary builder sold the airplane to his build partner. Unfortunately, the build partner passed away, and the Boeing engineer repurchased the aircraft in an estate sale. The original owner / builder cared for and maintained N349RF until 2017 when he once again decided to sell the aircraft.
The aircraft was then purchased by a retired airline pilot, turned Seattle realtor, who possessed a love of restoring wooden boats and airplanes. The new owner began a modernization project that included overhauling the engine (i.e. Poplar Grove Airmotive) and propeller (i.e. Tiffin Aire), as well as installing a new interior (i.e. Douglass Interior), and avionics (i.e. SteinAir).
Unfortunately the new owner passed away, unexpectedly, in the early stages of the modernization project. The widow worked with Galvin Flying in Seattle on Boeing Field – KBFI, to reinstall the overhauled engine and propeller, as well as the new interior. She worked with Duncan Avionics to remove the old panel and install the new panel.
The current owner was based at Boeing Field and had seen N349RF. He immediately fell in love with her sleek lines, but never thought anything of it. In 2021 he saw her on the ramp again and decided to do a little digging. To his delight he discovered she was for sale, so he bought her.
N349RF was very much a “90% complete, 90% of the way to go” project when he purchased her. She possessed a long list of squawks spanning engine, electrical and avionics. He knew this going in, and didn’t mind, since he had experience with avionics and maintenance from the US Air Force, and had been caring for a Vans RV-6A.
Over the course of the next couple of years the current he worked through the punch list of squawks. Some of the projects included:
- Troubleshooting and resolving inoperative turbochargers, so he could make full power at FL180 – 220KTAS WOT and mixture rich. Lots of fun, but burned way too much fuel
- Replacing the Garmin GMA 340 audio panel with a Garmin GMA 245 with bluetooth, USB charging, 3D audio and playback functionality.
- Troubleshooting and repairing the Garmin autopilot system anomalies (e.g. chaffed wiring), so that he’d be able to shoot GPS coupled approaches down to minimums in IMC.
- Simplifying the transponder configuration, by replacing the Garmin GTX 330ES.
- (ADSB-out only) with a Garmin GTX 45R (ADSB-in/out) and using the Garmin GDL 52 solely for Sirius XM radio and weather.
- Adding a second Garmin GDU 460 to the panel.
- Simplifying the electrical system that included 2 separate battery buses, with 2 heavy lead acid batteries, but only 1 main electrical and 1 avionics bus. The current system has 1 battery bus with 1 Earthx battery and a primary and secondary alternator.
- Replacing the primary alternator with a new one that is more consistent.
- Overhauling the fuel divider that began to leak.
- Making baffling modifications to help with engine cooling.
- Balancing the prop.
- Configuring the unmetered and metered fuel pressure and flow per TCM manuals.
“N349RF is our family airplane. When she’s not resting in our hangar, we use her to access the Pacific Northwest. What’s possible? We can drive to Bend or Sunriver OR in 5-6 hours, or we can fly there in slightly more than 1 hour. We can fly from Seattle to Bozeman, MT in less than 3 hours, or drive there in 10.5. Wine country? No problem. We can fly to Walla Walla in an hour, or down to Sonoma in 2 and a half hours. This airplane puts family adventures on steroids. We have 2 girls and our whole family flew from Seattle to Raleigh and back last summer, along with weeks worth of baggage.”
“We love N349RF, but we realize we are not the flying family we originally envisioned. We don’t fly as often as this beautiful bird deserves. We put in a ton of work to make this plane turnkey for the next owner. Everything is ready for you to load up, hop in and fly away. We hope you enjoy her as much as we have!”
Enjoy the Journey! And check out this plane. She needs a new home that will love her as she has been throughout her life.
